Violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir in recent years as the flow of Pakistan-backed militants into the state has dried to a trickle. Shown, Indian soldiers at a military camp near Srinagar, in this picture from August 2011.

The Supreme Court has criticized India’s army for failing to investigate soldiers that have allegedly committed human rights abuses in Kashmir.

The court is hearing a case over whether to allow Indian authorities to press ahead with an investigation over the killing of five innocent men in the Pathribal district of Kashmir in 2000.

In 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s federal investigation body, indicted five soldiers for the deaths. But the army went to court to stop the investigation, citing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, a law which shields soldiers in Kashmir from prosecution by civilian courts.

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The Supreme Court now wants to know why the army also failed to take internal disciplinary action against the soldiers.

According to a report in The Hindu, Justice Swatanter Kumar complained to additional solicitor-general, P. P. Malhotra, who is representing the army, that, “You don’t want to take over the case and initiate court martial proceedings against them. You don’t allow the criminal justice system to go ahead.”

In response, Mr. Malhotra said, “We cannot take over the case. The Armed Forces are bound to protect their men.”

The court in November had given the government until mid-December to decide whether to allow the CBI to push ahead with its investigation.

That deadline came and went without any decision and the case rolls on.

The Congress party-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appears unwilling to take a decision, caught between the Defense Ministry, which supports the army’s position, and the Home Ministry, which wants revision to the AFSPA but has been unwilling to fight for it publicly.

Violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir in recent years as the flow of Pakistan-backed militants into the state has dried to a trickle.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has argued strongly that the lull offers a chance to improve the military’s image by ending immunity for army personnel in some areas and rolling back India’s massive security presence in peaceful areas of the state.

Authorities have scaled back security bunkers in the state’s capital, Srinagar. But the state remains heavily militarized – with over 500,000 security personnel in situ – and the army has taken a rigid line on the immunity issue, arguing that any changes would make it impossible for soldiers to operate in a civilian environment.

Faced with the army’s intransigence, Mr. Abdullah, whose party is allied with the Congress in the local government, has begun to show signs of exasperation.

“The defense that the army has taken is that they have a mechanism in place to punish the guilty without recourse to civilian courts,” Mr. Abdullah told NDTV on Tuesday. “But if they’re not going to do it, there are more questions that are left unanswered.”

There have been many “fake encounters” in Kashmir since an open rebellion against Indian rule began there in 1989. The Pathribal killings have attracted the most publicity.

In 2000, 35 Sikhs were killed in the Chittisinghpura district of Kashmir as former U.S. President Bill Clinton was visiting India. Security forces later that year shot dead five men in Pathribal and claimed they were foreign militants guilty of killing the Sikhs.

Local authorities carried out DNA tests on the corpses which showed they were in fact locals. Officials then asked the CBI to investigate.

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